Differences between activists, politicians, and iconoclasts
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Oct. 15, 2024
I thought it would be pertinent to talk about the differences
between activists, politicians, and iconoclasts. It is crucial for
people to understand that these are distinct categories of people
who have different roles to play in the civic sphere. Understanding
this will maintain your sanity.
As of this writing (Oct. 14, 2024), it is roughly three weeks from
the presidential election. Since late July when President Joe Biden
ended his re-election campaign, Kamala Harris has built a very
broad coalition and momentum, uniting progressives with moderates
and even many prominent Republicans. Some on the left are
understandably uneasy about this, and they falsely mischaracterize
her campaign as a “Clintonesque parody.” From Harris’
bragging about her gun ownership to her hawkish talk on the borders
to her silence on trans issues, some progressives appear quite
disappointed and abandoned by a candidate who seems more eager to
appear on stage with Liz Cheney than with a prominent transgender
public figure.
On Oct. 14, 2011 — a mere 13 years ago but feels like a lifetime
ago — I was among one of the Occupy demonstrators, living in a
tent within a sea of tents covering two downtown Portland parks.
The weather was beginning to turn into something more autumn-like,
and during a night that is increasingly colder, I would fall asleep
to faint sounds of drums and random shouts.
The Occupy movement was a protest against then-President Barack
Obama, as well as against the Wall Street funds and the banksters.
I remember the energy and excitement of the 2008 Obama campaign. He
was a young community organizer from Chicago who, only after a
short stint in the U.S. Senate, ran for the White House touting
Change and Hope. I was at the Oregon Convention Center on that
election day, celebrating the first Black president in the history
of the United States.
The excitement, however, did not last very long for the
progressives who eagerly voted for Obama. Banks were bailed out,
but little seemed to have been done to help the working-class
people. Despite some lip service for racial justice, mass
incarceration of BIPOC people continued. While Candidate Barack
Obama promised comprehensive immigration reform with the
legalization of undocumented immigrants, President Barack Obama
continued with the Bush-era “Secure Communities” dragnet
program and ultimately, broke the historic record on deportations
(which was not broken even by Donald Trump). Obama could have
passed immigration reform during the first two years of his
presidency when he had a Democratic majority in Congress, but he
chose not to push the issue, likely fearing a massive Republican
counterattack. He was also against same-sex marriage equality, a
position he did not change until 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled
on Obergefell.
By 2010, the Obama presidency was under attack by both
conservatives and progressives. The Tea Party movement and the
Occupy movement emerged around the same time in response. The Tea
Party succeeded in translating its activism into electoral politics
by successfully winning congressional seats (and ultimately, laying
the foundation for the future Trumpism), while Occupy failed to do
so.
Both progressives and conservatives often decry the politicians
they have voted for when they “sell out” by working across the
aisle and negotiating compromises.
I am writing this as a kind of caution for those who put misguided
expectations on the future President Kamala Harris, and to help
readers understand how the world of politics works, versus how the
activist spaces work.
From day one, President Harris will face challenges and difficult
spaces to navigate. The honeymoon period after winning the
presidency through an unprecedented coalition will be very brief.
Many Republicans who endorse her today will quickly distance
themselves from her and go back to their normal Republican selves.
The progressives may quickly find themselves dismayed by “Copmala
Harris” militarizing the southern border and rapidly increasing
the deportation capacity. She will have an unenviable job of
keeping the nation together, governing the nation working with
hostile, obstructionist Republicans (who may gain a majority in at
least one of the chambers of Congress) so that they won’t hold
the government and country hostage over petty culture-war issues
such as DEI and LGBTQ rights.
Predictably, many progressives, today eager Kamala supporters, will
call her a “sell-out” and “traitor” who cowardly panders to
the right.
But their complaint is based on a profound misunderstanding:
elected leaders — politicians — are not activists, even if they
once were activists.
The art of being a politician is vastly different from the art of
being an activist, just as the art of being an auto mechanic is not
remotely similar to the art of being a surgeon.
Politics is an art of compromise and consensus-building. In a
functional representative or parliamentary democracy, things get
done but nobody gets everything they want. There are a lot of
behind-the-scene collaborations and negotiations that most people
do not see in the news, even when in public Democrats and
Republicans appear to be at an impasse and exchanging blame with
each other. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez works closely with her
Republican colleagues whenever she can find common ground with
them.
Just because your elected representative does not shout your
favorite slogan does not mean they have thrown you under the bus.
Successful politicians see their work as a game of chess. Sometimes
they have to move their pawns so that their opponent can seize them
so that they can use another piece to capture a bigger reward and
ultimately bring themselves to a win. This means that sometimes
certain issues have to wait to be addressed at an opportune time.
It also means that they might try to hide otherwise
too-controversial items in a larger, less-controversial bill as a
rider, away from the limelight. They may not publicly voice their
support for the marginalized and oppressed — and when they do,
they may even word their support in such a way that you would think
they are equivocating or half-assed — lest Republicans and their
PACs may take a soundbite, take it out of context and maliciously
spread disinformation about them.
The role of a politician is to get things done. To pass the bills
on a wide range of issues that help their constituents. To do the
greatest good for the country within the limits of the
constitution, existing laws, and what can be done in the current
political climate and within the resources available to them —
all while being constantly scrutinized by the press, social media,
low-info voters, conspiracy theorists, the donor class, the party
leadership, and political opponents alike. This is not an easy job
and is not for everyone.
By contrast, the role of an activist is to inspire the public. To
create narratives, bring wider public awareness, and initiate
public discourses. To shed light on issues that people are not
aware of, or don’t want to talk about. Activists organize to
build power by amplifying the voices and advocating for a focused,
narrow range of issues. Politicians will hear them, and hopefully
meet with them, but at the end of the day, politicians will have to
weigh whether pursuing this or that cause is doable, and if so, how
to achieve it in such a way that can garner the support of the
majority (which means bipartisan support).
Now, there are also iconoclasts. Iconoclasts also play an important
role and that is to help people question what they have always
taken for granted. Iconoclasts, while they can be part of an
activist space or even a fringe electoral candidate, can be quite
ineffective when it comes to either activism or politics since they
typically cannot be team players. They are more of a culture-maker,
perhaps an artist or an influencer.
An iconoclast may say, “Fuck the borders and abolish the United
States!”
An activist would say, “Protect the refugees and DREAMers,
amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and stop the deportations
now!”
A sensible politician would say, “We need a sensible, humane
immigration policy that preserves the dignity of all people while
safeguarding the nation from organized criminals and narcotics. We
will implement an orderly and safe refugee resettlement system, and
reintroduce and pass the DREAM Act and AgJOBS Act to protect the
hard-working and law-abiding undocumented immigrants, secure the
borders, prioritize the removal of violent noncitizen felons, and
then work on an earned pathway to legalize the status of long-term
unauthorized noncitizens already on the American soil.”
They may share the same goal, but their paths toward that goal
differ. During the Occupy protests, I have seen those differences
play out. An iconoclast in the “Radical Caucus” saw a problem
with the dysfunctional U.S. electoral system and called for a
boycott of the 2012 election and an abolition of the government.
The iconoclast cannot usually answer, in a concrete and practical
manner, how to achieve that and what they would do after the
elections and the government were abolished because it is not the
iconoclast’s role to get into those details. An activist worked
on protesting the money in politics, the Citizens United ruling,
the Koch brothers, and the American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC). A few of my fellow Occupiers, such as Nick Caleb and
Cameron Whitten, ran for elected office, with a platform calling
for a campaign finance reform and publicly-funded elections, among
others pertaining to issues voters care about (such as the $15
hourly minimum wage). While neither Caleb nor Whitten won the
election, had they been elected, they would have quickly learned
that the world of politics is very different from the world of
activism, and if they acted like an activist they’d alienate so
many people that they wouldn’t be very effective at governing
(consider the cautionary tales of former Portland city
commissioners Chloe Eudaly and JoAnn Hardesty, who, after one term,
were voted out and replaced by more conservative, pro-business
commissioners who undid much of their limited accomplishments).
Knowing the differences between these three types of players in the
civic world is important if you want to become an effective
change-maker. It also helps with your mental health, sparing you
the rage and disillusionment whenever your favorite politicians
appear to “sell out.”
